From Town Criers to Bloggers: How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age? #544505-00953

From Town Criers to Bloggers: How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age? #544505-00953

June 9, 2010 3:47am

Submission Number:

544505-00953

Commenter:

Christopher Boucher

State:

Pennsylvania

Initiative Name:

From Town Criers to Bloggers: How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?

Sir/Madam, America is a country made great by the individual efforts of it's people, each of whom is free to choose to work in any field they want to, as long as their job skills, opportunities, and talents enable them to perform in that chosen field. America is also a country made great by the freedom of it's citizens to read and write whatever they want, and by the freedom of it's citizens to choose to ignore what they do not want to read. People who want to be journalists will always step forward to pursue their passion. People who don't want to fund this passion will not buy the newspapers. My belief is that the newspapers are not read anymore because they do not report in a fair and unbiased way and do not reflect the views and interests of the newspaper buying public. The idea that a profession, like journalism, needs government subsidies to ensure the ongoing availability of 'trained journalistic talent' to write articles and present news information is extraordinarily troubling. It is troubling not only because of it's source of funding - taxing other sources of information to fund this government supported "news training" - but also because the 'news' that will come from these newly minted 'reporters' will be so aligned with whatever the Government wants them to say that this will be no real news at all. No dog bites its master if it wants to be fed. This is frighteningly similar to the vision depicted in 1984 and to the reality of the 1930s Germany, and cold war Soviet Union... You are moving toward a government control of the communications within this country and that is wrong, just wrong. Further, to push a tax on Americans to enable the government to create a force of writers who will then publish what the government wants to have the American public see is clearly wrong and I ask you to reject it as fair minded Americans. Thank you.